Page 2 - OJ Brochure - 2021-02

A Flight To Nowhere?

The news article headline read: “Check passenger, for reasons still not known, had
in but never leave: Taiwan offers fake flights boarded the wrong flight.
for travel-starved tourists.” In a day and age All Nippon Airways Flight 175 left the
where we hear a lot about fake news and fake Los Angeles International Airport at about
this and that, it may not be too surprising to 11:30 AM, spent about eight hours in the air
learn about the offer of fake flights. and landed back in California just after 7:30
The offer was made for travel lovers as a PM, majorly inconveniencing its passengers,
cure for those with itchy feet who couldn’t including a celebrity, who live-tweeted to her
travel due to planes being grounded during 9.2 million followers, “flight to nowhere”.
the coronavirus pandemic. And what do “trav- The reality is, many of us have felt like
elers” get for this fake flight? They receive we’ve been on a “flight to nowhere” due to
a fake itinerary at check in, as well as a walk the coronavirus pandemic. In March of last
through passport control and security, and year, life as we knew it came to a grinding
the chance to board the aircraft. The passen- halt. Businesses and schools closed. A lot of
gers and the plane however, never leave the plans were upset. Lives were turned up-
departure terminal. A flight to nowhere. side-down.
In a separate scenario, a Tokyo-bound flight Then it looked like we were making prog-
actually left Los Angeles, but after 4-hours ress. States, counties, cities, and towns
into the trip it made a u-turn over the Pacif- began to open back up. But a slight spike
ic Ocean and returned. Why? Because one in coronavirus cases shut everything down
again. While things are slowly opening back
up once more, it has certainly felt like we’ve
been going nowhere.

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